The Budget Fashionista’s Weekly Retail Report for March 29

It seems the news is getting worse by the minute for luxury retailers, but it’s starting to look up for the rest. Consumer spending has seen and upward trend in late February and March, and the shareholders of Saks, Ann Taylor, Liz Claiborne, Quicksilver, and Macy’s are feeling a little more optimistic about the future.

What about jobs?Barney’s is letting go 76 employees.Wal-Mart (yes, Wal-Mart) is shutting down an optical lab and in the process, cutting 650 jobs. Swarovski Crystal is laying off 650. Active Ride (skateboarders and surfers know this one well) has filed for Chapter 11.

Maybe we should all start thinking outside the shoe box, like suit maker Canali, which has just purchased a software company called Datafashion.

Comments

The news about H&M;surprises me. Then again, while they haven’t expanded much yet to my neck of the woods (there are only 1-2 outposts in San Francisco and one in San Jose) I know that in other major cities there’s a glut of them. In both Vancouver and Montreal, it seems like there’s one on every block! Perhaps they’ve saturated the market in certain cities?